Welcome to Podland. We're sponsored by buzz sprouts. The easiest way to host, promote and track your podcast [email protected]. Your first 90 days of free it's may the 20th, 2021. I'm James Cridland, the editor of pod news.net here in Australia. Sam
Sethi, the editor of Sam Talks Technology here in the UK
I'm Adrian. Spataro from clean boys thought AI and later I'll be talking about getting rid of earns
and I'm Lindsay, Jeff c'mon. And later today I'll be talking about Casad a way to help promote Podcast for
business. They will pod lands a weekly podcast where Sam and I delve deeper into the week's podcasting news.
This week, which is bigger Spotify or Apple, some clever artificial intelligence. And we go lossless. But first the Ambien James in the award ceremony live from Los Angeles, California at the ambitions were announced. They're the first Podcast awards from the Podcast Academy. Did you watch
it Jane? They were, yes, I did. I watched it along with a back channel on Slack with a couple of friendly folk, including Eva terror and yeah, it was a great event. very smart. The Podcast of the year went to wonder is. Dying for sex. Wondering, ended up winning five different awards which is good. They were the number one Podcast studio crooked media got four Q code got three. so yeah, it was a good it was a good, positive showbiz good feeling award, which was great.
Excellent. Now I've never heard, I should say, dying for sex. Is it worth listening to a clearly it's a
winner. clearly it is a winner. I thought, Oh, wouldn't it be good if I poached the dying for sex trailer on the end of pod news for that day and then listened to it and then thought, I don't think I'll probably be able to, broadcast that on Podcast, radio, where the podcast goes out and a year. I'm not sure that's gonna work. there we go. But It's a great story of essentially someone who didn't have long to live. and she decided that she would change her lifestyle quite dramatically.
and there was a lovely sort of bit at the end where the award was given out to her co-host and it was a good time, really, very nicely produced very glossy thing on Twitch on YouTube. I think 26,000 people were watching it live and it's been watched by double that now. So yeah, it did. It did very well.
Now you wrote about evergreen Podcast, one for communicates rewards. What were they.
Yeah. this was a separate awards. the communicate or awards and evergreen podcasts, we're very pleased to win that. There's also been awards. of course from the Webbys. I always liked the Webbys because I won one year both the judges choice and the audience choice as well for the same thing. The thing for the Virgin radio website, which I'm delighted by. so therefore the Webbies have a certain place in my heart and so good to see so many Podcast winners for that awards as well.
Now clean voice. This is a new service called clean voice.ai. It claims it will automatically remove ums and ERs from audio. You just upload the audio and it does it automatically for you. James do
you think of it? It's really clever really clever. not just, it gets rid of ums and ERs and things like that. We use D script of course, but this system would do it automatically, but even more of that sort of thing, it does. They are working on, I say they Adrian is working on removing stuttering, which would be a good plan. I could have done that 50 years ago.
And even when you stop a sentence halfway through and you rephrase what it is, you're going to say we'll automatically spot that as well. So from Australia to Austria, I spoke with Adrian Spataro and he outlined what clean voice.ai can do.
In essence, it removes all the filler sounds you produce during talking. So for example um, which might be removed from this episode, I guess, and earth. But also we want to remove our sounds like stuttering. or for example, when you rephrasing your sentence and also our sounds, which are, let's say not nice to hear in the
recording. Okay. that's really interesting. And you're using. Artificial intelligence to do the RS and the ums and the ERs. Normally we use Sam and Sam normally edits them out using D script, which is a relatively good way of doing it. But you're using some form of artificial intelligence. how does that work
in essence what we are doing when I'm saying, wait, it's just myself. Sorry for that.
I'm used to that you would see
it from a genetic perspective. They would try to find a phonetic sound of the earth and the earth once it indentified that phonetic sound. It also tries to see if it makes sense to remove it because when you sing um, that um, can come forth in a way that it's in the sentence. So you could say, I think this is better than. This, when you say, damn, that sound same as M or whatever.
So the AI is a bit more smarter, which it tries to identify if it makes sense to remove it, if it's within the word or if it's just a filler sound. So that's the basic approach. How we do this.
That's very clever. And you were talking about getting rid of stuttering in mid July. I have started in Stamford all my life. So that would be quite a thing. If you're able to get rid of that. How is that going so far?
So currently I have an algorithm which can remove some stutter. It's currently not available since let's say it takes every 10th. Stutter. And the problem also is once you detect the stutter, it's not quite obvious how to correct it since there's little ways you can stutter and every way of stuttering needs a certain way of editing to make the sound. As natural as possible. So it's still a work in progress that said I think it's possible to do it since I have a can provide ready value.
And this Technology does it. you're joining us from Austria. and I'm wondering whether it works in other languages other than just English. That was
one of the main ones. Not only in English, but also other languages here in Europe, the script, like I've seen this script, this is an amazing tool. And it also can remove firms. It's not like a, it cannot do something similar while we are doing. But the big difference is that this script is limited only to an English language. And one of the big things is that here in Europe, we have so many languages You have German, you have French and so on, and we definitely support more languages than
English. Yeah. I think that's certainly a very helpful thing and certainly I know living in Australia, but speaking British English, I know that there's more than just one English as well, so it's always fun. sometimes when you're asking something which is used to American English, To understand English, or British English. yeah, I'm sure that's a complicated thing. So who if people wanted to try out your tool, how could they end up doing that? And what's the business model behind it. So
if
you do it today, then you would have to buy a license key. And that license key would allow you to upload the single file or up to ten five. Depends. how many license keys you want and then it will render that audio for you. So you will upload the audio. It would remove the arms and then you get the clean audio back. Now that's the current one. In a week. So I guess end of this week on Friday,
which is tomorrow, is this Podcast goes out. Yeah, it
will be a subscription based model. So that we'll be starting from $10 where you can upload. Five hours of audio and you again, same thing as before, but you will without needing to license
key. Okay. that's very cool. That's very cool. And in terms of the future, is this always going to be a [email protected], or is that going to be other ways that you can get rid of ums and ERs in the future, perhaps by working with Podcast hosting,
we are an early Talks with certain companies to integrate clean voice. Currently, we still have to figure out a way which is sensible for both of us for now. That's a more longer term idea My goal is to create the best remover. And after that, we can see how we can integrate the top of platforms. But that's more a long-term
plan. Yeah, sure. It's certainly a really interesting piece of technology and certainly a very clever thing that you're doing here. So I'm particularly keen to find out how it goes on. what are you using under the hood, by the way, are you using Amazon stuff or Google stuff or where's all of this stuff? None of that.
the problem with these tools is that. there feature text tools where you give an audio and we'll give it a text back. And that's how the script removes arms. Cause he knows where the ums are based on the text and yeah, that's about it. The problem with these tools is that you cannot use them. if you don't speak perfect English, right? If you're a native English person, it's not a problem. But especially if you want to support off languages, this is not the right way.
In this case, I did the AI by myself. Since I'm a data scientist, I've been working with five for a long time. So, I build my own AI in that regard and the current tools out there, like Google and so on as mentioned the promise. If you're not native speaker, they don't provide much value.
So you're hosting this stuff yourself. It's your own AI, your own tools. this can't be the first AI piece of work that you've done in the past. Adrian, what other exciting things have you been working on
prior from this. Except of work, of course, where I've done a lot of projects for clients. my personal project was busier, not AI, which is AI too, which helps you draw stuff. So for a graphic designer, you would maybe draw an icon for your website. You would have to do it for you instead. So yeah, it's not my first endeavor in that regard.
Wow. Gosh. So it's talking to people like you, Adrian. And then I realized how stupid I am a little long though. so many congratulations. It's a great looking tool and certainly if anybody wants to have a play with it, clean voice.ai is where to go. Adrian, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you James. Really good to speak with Adrian. He's a bright man. Isn't he?
And by the way, if you try clean voice.ai, a couple of weeks ago, Adrian tells me that he improved the AI just yesterday on stay. So it doesn't even better job. which is really nice. And it's weird, isn't it? That you can have an upgrade of this sort of thing happening, at the same time. So really good to see all of that.
I think it's interesting that this whole space is rapidly moving forward. It will be a good comparison with what we do with de script. When we use this later.
indeed. So we can either, use clean voice for this Podcast what's your thinking there, Sam? Shall we use clean voice for this podcast to not do any DM-ing and D-ring otherwise
yeah, I think we'll see how it works. I think I'm going to put it through both cause we have that fun of you editing and then I submit it. that's the best way to get it out there, James? I think, we'll try it in both and just let's see what the result is. Maybe we can talk about it next week.
Well, maybe we can, maybe that's a plan. I love the way that he also says, Oh yeah, I also built that thing that makes it automatic for you to paint and draw and things like that. And you go clever people who you really want to succeed. Great to talk to Adrian earlier on.
now Apple and Spotify seem to be on a weekly bunfight this week. It's about lossless audio, Apple and Amazon have joined Spotify by announcing lossless audio for them music streaming services. And the question is, will anyone notice. What's happened, James, you wrote a big article on this,
I did. I wrote a big article on it. so I used to, when I worked in the radio industry in the UK, there's this thing called dab, which broadcasts the radio over the air. and lots of people were very Mony at the audio quality because on a dab radio, you can see the bit rate. So you can see, is this 128? K is this 64? K what is it? And lots of people were very Moni about the audio quality.
and I did a very sneaky and underhand thing once with a radio station that I ran called Virgin radio, where we took the grooves output. And we changed it. So instead of saying 128 K on the screen, it said 160 K on the screen. cause it was using 160 Ks worth of bandwidth. And so lots of people emailed and said how wonderful, you've improved the audio quality. It sounds brilliant. It sounds excellent. Thank you so much for doing this. I just changed what the number said on your radio.
I hadn't changed the audio quality at all. I just filled the extra 32 K with some images. and I think that goes to show that for quite a lot of people, not everybody, but for quite a lot of people. audio quality is something that we just don't really notice. And we have to have something on our screen telling us that this is Hi-Fi sound.
I am not entirely convinced that people are going to spot this, but Apple, Amazon and Spotify have all said that they are going to be using 24 bit 192 kilohertz audio, which is up to 3.7. Megabits a second to listen to if you want to end up using that. So I think if you were to download a Joe Rogan podcast, it would be more than three gig. if they were doing that in high res, but apart from anything else, you can't listen on virtually any.
Phones many devices, Bluetooth, headphones won't work with it. and secondly, it's nothing to do with Podcast cider. So it's just purely music and I'm not sure that it's the right thing to do for podcasts, maybe the right thing to do for music. But, as I say, I'm not entirely convinced that most people will realize.
as you know, I do river radio and we're going to be starting at 32 bit mano. They're so expensive. And I wonder how bad or good it will be, but 128 you said, or 160 over a hundred thousand a year.
Exactly. So if you can lower the amount of, bit rate that you use without it sounding appreciably worse, then that's probably a plan. Interestingly, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify are all doing this. So Amazon and Apple have said that it will be free. For their users, Spotify Hi-Fi I think they were planning on selling it as an additional fee for Hi-Fi sound, but I'm not sure they will now and YouTube music, which is the music service that I use. they have said they currently use 256 K AAC.
which by the way, lots of tests have said that people can't tell the difference between that and lossless anyway, but they've said publicly that they won't be going higher than that because their music licensing costs would change quite dramatically if they did. which is interesting. Because hearing music, licensing companies, the music companies wants to charge more for high quality audio is an interesting, side, which I hadn't appreciated.
So that's the wonderful world of music licensing, which is always for fun.
I think though, this is one where Apple will win. now the reason I think that is about a year ago when Apple started to launch numerous chips of its own So the headphones would one chip in it with the Apple home studio their equipment at the Alexa with the one chips in the M one chips. The fact that they've built this ecosystem of chips, it means that they can start to do clever stuff than Amazon or Spotify that are just software driven.
And in the Apple announcement, they said that they all play Dolby, Atmos tracks on all airports or beat headphones with an H one or w one chip as well as the built-in speakers in the latest iPhone iPad. max so tells me that they're going to use hardware acceleration. To make that sound better. And I think that's going to be where again, they will have an extensive advantage over Spotify and. Amazon. So it'll be interesting to see when
that comes out. absolutely. And my understanding of the way that Dolby Atmos can work is it can work in, in terms of a very sort of spacial sound, where if you turn your head, you hear different things going on. So if you're listening. To an orchestra, for example. And normally the violins are in the left side. The the double basis are in the right hand side. But as you turn your head rounds, then obviously all of the instruments will change.
And I think that's fine if the music's recorded in that way. If the music's not recorded in that way, and most pop songs aren't recorded in that way, then I'm not quite sure what you're going to hear, but I'm sure that people will spot that as this gets more, yeah. More, used by people who are making music. I'm sure it'll be something that people will get very excited about whether or not people notice really is an interesting one, but not necessarily for podcasting, but who knows.
There have been podcasts that have been announced, which have been called high definition podcasts and iHeartRadio did a lot of work with binaural sound as well. And they were getting very excited with that bit too.
to be, or not to be Spotify or Apple on Tuesday. Libsyn release their figures for April saying that Apple is four times bigger than Spotify for podcasts downloads. However, Buzzsprout released figures earlier this month saying that Spotify and Apple were now the same size. So can't both be correct, James what's going on.
They can't both be right. and my suspicion is that neither of them are right. I spent a month researching this and I think I chatted a little bit about this a month or so ago. I talked to a bunch of other companies as well to find out what was going on. And so partially it's to do with Apple core media that we spoke about a couple of weeks ago. So Buzzsprout was basically looking at any Podcast plays from an Apple core media user agent and saying, we're just going to ignore all of those.
Whereas Libsyn was giving all of those numbers to Apple, and that's why the figures are so different here because Buzzsprout have essentially taken all of the Apple core numbers and gone. None of this is Apple, which isn't correct. Libsyn has said all of it is Apple, which isn't correct either. My research at the moment says that it's about 58% of Apple core media being Apple podcasts. So that means that 42% isn't.
but then that's just research on pod news, which isn't a normal podcast it's normally listened to by people in the industry. at least you get some kind of an understanding there that maybe it's half and half, and in which case, Libsyn is giving way too much numbers to Apple. And Buzzsprout is giving way too little numbers to Apple, and there's all kinds of other things as well, but sprout is growing faster than Libsyn is currently.
So therefore newer shows are more likely to be on Spotify, that older shows and Buzzsprout seems to have more shows which do better on Spotify, like sport, for example, which does significantly better. So I think all of that is partially the reason why the figures are so different here.
The other thing which I found fascinating is I talked to Buzzsprout about whether or not they have any numbers for how many of their shows are on Spotify and how many of their shows are on Apple and they have those numbers and it turns out that they have more shows in Spotify than in Apple.
so no surprise that Spotify is almost bigger than Apple for Buzzsprout, but secondly, only 60% of Buzzsprout shows are in Apple podcasts because it's so hard to get into Apple podcasts, fiddling around with Podcast connect and everything else only 60%. And I think that's the real interesting story here.
And have they fix the Apple connect yet? Is that.
have they fixed Apple connect yet? It's been a month. since it's been launched a month today Marco almond reported yesterday, that ATP, which is his Podcast fell off Apple podcasts for awhile. He can't log into Apple podcasts connect. it's been a month. I still can't see any analytics in Apple podcasts. It says not enough data. For the pod news Podcast. Now pod news got 359 downloads from Apple podcasts on Tuesday. If that's not enough data, how much is enough date? and it's very sad.
I've literally just. Been sending an email to my suffering friend at Apple podcasts PR and saying, is there a chance of an interview on this? It's been a month now? we should probably see, whether on an Apple might say anything and an Apple still aren't saying anything yet. So who knows, maybe I'll be given an interview with Ben cave, although I would imagine that I'm more likely to be sent. five brand new Apple MacBook pros. This knows what else, and that's not going to happen either.
yeah so it's a real shame to see, not just the Apple podcasts connect still isn't working properly, but also that they're not saying anything. And I think that's the saddest thing there.
in the adult message, you'd like to say they're still giving us their mushroom strategy.
Indeed. Indeed. They are.
Now costed, this is a new company that got $7 million funding. Last month, they help larger companies promote their Podcast better. James who know more about cost. I think he spoke to their CEO.
Yeah. companies like sales force use costed, but I reckon that there's probably something to learn here for every podcaster as well. So I talked to co-founder Lindsay. Chip calmer. And I asked her how she got into the Podcast space in the first place
career marketer. I spent 15 years in B2B marketing. So I have lived the lives of those that, that we at Casad are now serving. So I've seen B2B marketing. I've seen content marketing from every angle, small boutique agency, and up to those large enterprises and realized, Hey, the way that we. our approaching content marketing is becoming antiquated. it's all focused around blogging and keywords and SEO, which is great. All of those things are great, but.
Our audiences really want this content, what you and I are doing right now, this, these conversations where they feel really connected to a brand and that they can hear and see and experience something that they feel really matters and is relevant to them. So what if we put that at the center? So I've seen that I've experienced it throughout my career, right before starting casting, I was brought into a large global enterprise to start and run a content strategy.
long story short, as part of that strategy. I wanted that connection that I just talked about with our audience and I wanted to grow our brand that way. So we started to Podcast. This was in 2017 that we started working on. I think we launched it in 2018 which seems like just yesterday, but is becoming is years ago now. so we launched a show and found that it was really great. Did what we wanted it to do. it created relationships with our audience around the world.
It pulled together our internal audience of team members around the world. But I was shocked that there was no platform to help me do that. We had to piecemeal together, all these one off tools and point solutions, most of which were not made for an enterprise marketing team and many of which weren't even made for podcasting. It was like a recording tool that you can use to Podcast. And we made it work and we found ways to measure what we felt like it mattered, but it was very cumbersome.
It was very frustrating for me as a marketing leader. Not to be able to go to my CEO and my COO and say, this is working and I know it. And here's why, and here's how it's influencing revenue. here's how it's impacting the business. And basically I've set out to be the change I wanted to see and create that platform.
And so a little over two years ago now that's outcasted was born, as I said, What if we had in the world, a content marketing platform that served marketing teams in a way that let them put the content that their audiences really want rich audio, video content at the center of their strategies and helped them ring it out, help them not turn it and burn it and measure it in a way that really mattered for the brand. And yeah, that's. That's how it all happened.
And your website has a lot of excellent language on it. One of the, one of it talks about there are quite a lot of Podcast brands out there, churning and burning episodes. I love churning and burning. What do you mean by that?
So quite often when a brand and I think even. More broadly speaking, anyone who does a podcast, they create the podcast, they produce the podcast, they publish the podcast. However, whatever that process look like, and then they move on to the next thing. And you're leaving so much value behind because there's a lot of goodness in each.
And every conversation you get a subject matter expert or somebody who's really passionate about a topic on your show to talk about everything that they know about. And. you leave all that in that episode, in that little container, that's set on this shelf. When you could be ringing it out, you could be getting back in there and using more from it, pulling clips, plane takeaways, equipping your sales team with it, creating supplemental blog content, or article content with it.
There's just so much more you can do. other than let it turn and burn and just go onto the next thing.
And so constitute what allows you to search through previous podcasts and that sort of thing? Or how does it work?
Yeah. So in a nutshell you're a marketer and you are. Managing a Podcast. And so you have your host, whoever that may be go have a great conversation, you record it. that show gets produced and you have this lovely episode. That's where Casad as a software platform comes into play. So you upload that episode. Into the cast and platform, we host it and syndicate it out to whatever player that works for you. Apple, Spotify, lots of others are getting involved now as well.
but then we also give it a place to live on your site. So a microsite, a home that, has the houses, the entire show and every episode gives your audience a really nice branded experience as they come and consume your content on that. That page on that micro-site you can share key takeaways and little clips and related content. but then also on the backend, you get a transcription for every single episode. so from there, yes, to your point, yes.
You can go back and search through every piece of audio and video content that you've uploaded into cast it. So you can resurface content that you already have. You can repurpose it, you can reuse it, you can clip it up and share it. as opportunities present themselves. To reuse that content and make even more of it. and then, yeah, just ringing it out and amplifying it across all other channels.
That's very cool. And something that I used to do an awful lot around some of the websites that I used to run was making sure that as much of the content as possible was evergreen. So you could go in reuse as many little chunks of content as you possibly could. And it sounds as if that's doing exactly that for podcasting as well, which is great.
It's true. And then with analytics, With metrics that really matter specifically, because again, we're talking about marketing teams that represent brands, specifically, enterprise B2B, some metrics that matter to the business to say what of this content is? Yes, great content and great marketing, but also what's influencing revenue. What's influencing pipeline, what's influencing, renewables and the metrics that matter to the brand. And how can I, as a marketer.
Get back in there and resurface things that are going to continue to move the needle, so to speak for my business.
So you can work out whether or not somebody who's listened to a podcast then goes and buys a product or buys a subscription or whatever it might be.
Yeah. Yep. By integrating with CRM and plugging into, flowing into that information that you and your sales team and your business is already using to manage that into the sales process and the customer relationships. yeah, you can absolutely see how it's all working together and. What to do more of,
So who are some of your current customers? Are they all massively large companies?
we work with mid-market on up to yeah. Enterprise. So of course, Salesforce, PayPal HubSpot's also a customer and a great partner of ours. Drift is a. Fantastic brand and a wonderful partner and customer of ours. yeah, we work with a lot of SAS companies, I think by default, they are early adopters, not just of us, but of podcasts in general. but yeah, that's lots of other, financial institutions and venture capital firms are big into thought leadership and therefore podcasting. So yeah.
a nice range of of industries and company sizes.
Always nice to hear Ray pod new supporter of of HubSpot getting mentioned at so always a good thing. Are there any plans to make this available to smaller podcasts as well? Or are you really focusing on that sort of size of company?
Yeah, so we are made for and designed for in that mid-market to enterprise that said we do have. a few smaller customers that have prioritized this approach saying, Hey, we're going to put our shows, audio and video content at the center. That there's a huge opportunity for us. thought leadership is massive. It does create more connection with your audience. It does build more relationships with your audience.
and yeah, just because you're small doesn't mean that you can't prioritize that, but typically we are the best fit for kind of that mid size and up to very large
company. Now last month you announced a $7 million funding round many. Congratulations on that. I'm guessing because I'm talking to you on your private yacht at the moment, I'm guessing that's where the money's gone. no. Yeah.
Don't tell the investors yet. I just, yeah. Swindled that off.
Yeah.
it's growth. I that's the shortest answer is growth. we've got to continue to innovate on product and I truly mean innovate, not just turn out, here's a new feature and here's something additional for. But product growth sake, but truly innovating and say and guiding our customers into next generation of content marketing to say, truly put conversations at the center. Here's how where the first and only platform that's doing that.
First of course, there's different ways that you can have a podcast if you're a brand, but we're are, we are the ones that are taking our customers and really the industry by the hand and saying, What if you did marketing this way, what if you approached content marketing this way? and so it's up to us to continue to lead the way with really great product innovation. and then, when we do that, we have to continue to talk about it.
So fueling drilling our voice and making sure that people hear about us and know about us and yeah, just growth across the board and serving our customers.
The other thing that I noticed looking through the. Castiel website, which [email protected] is random mentions of something called Podcast. Tell us what Podcast is.
Podcast is our, I keep saying unofficial mascot, but I think he's pretty official at this point. yeah. Yes he's he's a grumpy little purple cat and he. Yeah. He shows up everywhere and he dressed up as lady. I can't remember, but from Bridgeton yeah, I don't know if you're a British and fan, but most recently that's what Podcast was dressed up as, and the way that Podcast came to be was our designer. Byron Elliott who's. enormously talented was in a meeting with us. He was our first hire.
I have two co-founders, so Adam and Zachary and I were talking about product roadmap and Byron was there. and Adam accidentally wrote pod Katz instead of Podcast. On the board. And of course, what good designers do? He started doodling and Podcast was born. And we were like no that's not a doodle that's a thing. And so yeah, Podcast came about very organically and found his home with us.
Podcast thing. Fantastic, Lindsay, thank you so much. Feel re feel retirement and keep in touch as you continue growing.
thank you so much for this show. We have a business doing podcasts, listening to your podcast about podcasts has been enormously helpful. So it's been a real pleasure to be here.
Great to talk with Lindsay. I reckon it's always a good idea to make the most of the content that you have. It's very easy. I think, to publish a show once, assume that it's been out there and everybody's heard it and then forget about it. And I think their tool is a great way to help the companies that they work with, link back again and again. And I think that's a great tip for every Podcast of big or small, even if you can't afford this particular tool, remember.
All of the archive stuff that you've got and link back to it whenever you can. I think that's always a good plan.
Yeah. Cross-promote now Spotify, back in the news again, James, with transcripts, it seems as part of a wider piece of work for better accessibility. Spotfire to begin auto transcribing some of the podcasts in the next few weeks. Now, is this something that Spotify should be doing? Is it a good idea? What's behind
it. Yeah. I think it probably is something that they could, that they should be doing. They plan to enable transcripts for every Podcast in the future, but they will be auto transcribing the podcasts that they own already. I hate to say, I told you so Sam, but back in may of last year I spotted something in the terms and conditions, the new Spotify terms and conditions, which said that they were thinking about automated transcripts. so I was quite pleased to be first with the news a year ago.
Which is always a nice thing. but I also wrote something at the time around automated transcripts and whether or not all podcasters wanted those. The problem with an automated transcript is that it's about 95% accurate, which means that every, one word out of every five is wrong. That's not quite how maths works, but you'll get the idea. There's an awful lot of wrong words in there. so automated transcripts, aren't always the best plan.
One would question, how could I go in and correct Spotify transcripts? is that a thing? And anyway, the Podcast index has a Podcast transcript tag, which is now available. and maybe Spotify should be using that one as well. the good news, is if you use Chrome as your web browser or you're on an Android phone, then live captions are available for every podcast app that you use. which is a great thing. if you're on an Apple phone, unfortunately you're a bit left out for now.
but a good thing, I think in terms of accessibility from Spotify point of view,
is that the only benefit of transcripts? we've been told time and time again, that it's got an SEO or Podcast SEO functionality. Do you think it has, or is it just something that we just do and hope that Google will index it?
I'm sure that Spotify will feed in these automated transfers to their own search engine, which is really, when people talk about Podcast SEO, it's very much, I think talking about what's the Podcast app search engines kickback rather than what Google does. I'm still not very convinced that Google has a massive impact on Podcast. Discoverability, although, who knows, maybe it does. But it'll certainly help. And I know that Apple have been doing stuff like this in the past.
So if you do a search within the Apple podcast app, then you do get some results which are clearly, automated transcripts in that particular app. I'm sure that there are benefits in terms of SEO.
There's clear benefits in terms of Podcast reporters as Carmen said from the verge when she was tweeting about this because it'll make life an awful lot easier for all of us to be able to quickly skim through a podcast and find out what was said in it so that we can then go and find out the the actual bit of the audio. so that'll be useful.
but All of this kind of stuff is I think very handy, as long as it gives the content creator, the control that they really ought to have because they are the people that make the content. And if I want to opt out of automated transcripts or if I want to be able to go in and correct them, then to my mind, I should be able and afforded the opportunity to do that.
it'd be long before we're not needed, by the way, you know that change
then you yes, I, I was talking I was talking only this morning to Brian Barletta from sounds profitable, who has found this amazing piece of automated tools that will learn your voice and do a better job of it than de script And apparently we won't be needed at all. So who knows?
I was thinking there's AI software that can write posts now. So the Washington post had been using that some of these sports journalism. So you've got the ability to write the post. You've got overdub and other voice tools that will speak the text. You then can auto transcript it. And there's software. Now that will auto summarize a transcript as well. So you could get the summary back at the other end, if you
wanted. Yeah, and done in your voice if you wanted to as well. all of that I think is this is really interesting. what might be really interesting is to give a bunch of software or the entire RSS feed that I use to produce. Pod news with give it all of that and basically say go. and it would take all of those stories. Make sure short versions of each of them is to come all together, get me to voice them automatically. That would be a thing.
Maybe I'll do that when I'm away on a holiday at some point in the future when I can leave this country.
also a company I found, David just launched type studio.co, which is another audio transcribing software. but it's in browser only.
Yeah. Ah, Interesting. I shall check it out.
Now, just to finish off with, there was a couple of stories that I thought I'd ask you about. First one, we keep talking about them. Nick Flix is said to be expanding their Podcast activity and taking pictures from production companies. So now last week you said you thought it might just be, them putting a podcast out for a film or TV show that they had. But this seems to suggest that it's a broader use of podcasting.
Yes. And I'm not quite sure what the underlining story is. I remember reporting on something called Netflix plus, which they're apparently working on, which is some kind of, get closer to the action portal that will be inside the Netflix app. so maybe it's that, but the fact that they're taking pitches from other independent companies seems to suggest that they've got more ambitions in that field.
who knows, maybe on the other side, maybe they're using podcasting as Amazon is for example as a way of incubating story ideas and things that they can then turn into TV shows in the future. maybe that's the plan. really don't know, but I think it's interesting to keep an eye on and you're, they're absolutely convinced that Netflix is going to buy Spotify. I'm convinced that Netflix is going to crash and burn because it's, I'm spending so much money.
It's increasingly reliant on these massive, great big budget shows and and we're already seeing the fight back. Paramount and Disney and all of these other streaming services. And I wonder. Whether Netflix is first mover advantage, which they clearly had is going to be something that is almost worthless now. and who knows whether Netflix may fall apart in the next year or so.
I guess you are very much you are very much a glass half full person, and I am a glass half empty person when it comes to, large companies such as this. I
think you're arguing the same point for me because if Netflix films and TV starts to wane because of the other companies, they will need to find a secondary revenue stream. And that's when I think they will go to sports.
Ah, yes. that probably makes sense maybe.
And I think when you see Amazon making a 9 billion pound bid for MGM this week I think you're beginning to see that triple play. getting much more serious films, TVs, music, podcasts. I think they're all playing in that same space. It'll be interesting to watch, but I'm still taking my bet Netflix to buy Spotify.
we will see on that. I appear to be winning the best whole clubhouse, not being around in six months, but judging by some of the latest download figures.
Yes, 90% down now. the other one that I caught my eye was Spotify is hiring a new Podcast boss, according to Bloomberg.
Yes, Spotify is fascinating to me. They have so many different Podcast bosses. and so this story in Bloomberg is basically saying that they're going to get another one. And so they're essentially looking for somebody else to look after podcasts and splitting the podcasts that they have Into more divisions I'm already confused enough about what's going on in terms of Spotify as podcasts. Do you remember that?
Barack Obama and Bruce Springfield exclusive Podcast renegades exclusive until last week when all of a sudden it appeared on Apple podcasts, I wouldn't say easily. Yeah. So you can now listen to that. On Apple podcasts, which is exactly the same as they did with the Michelle Obama show. and so some others of their exclusives appear not to be exclusives anymore. Maybe that's a windowing thing. Maybe that's a complete change of strategy from the strategy that they told their investors.
I don't know, but there's weird things going on that Spotify at the moment in terms of their Podcast strategy. and the fact that they are hiring more management is always a slight concern. I tell you, after somebody that was worked for the BBC for two years, the least you want is more managers get rid of them. you absolutely don't need any more of those. yeah. Interesting seeing what's going to happen at Spotify that. I expect Joe
Rogan an Apple anytime soon then.
Huh? yes. or may be which is which by the way is a really weird thing with Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is still in Apple podcasts. The feed is the old feed is still in Apple podcasts. There's one show in there which dates from April of last year, randomly. And that's it. There's no other shows. There's no communication in that feed at all that Joe Rogan is now available exclusively on Spotify. There are no clips being posted. There's no opportunity.
That's the most subscribed to Podcast for a certain generation as the most subscribed to Podcast yet Spotify aren't using the Libsyn feed that they have to promote. The fact that Joe Rogan is now exclusive on the Spotify platform. That to me is just really weird. why would you throw away that incredible opportunity that you have to reach Joe Rogan listeners? Themselves by putting something new in that Podcast feed, maybe somebody has forgotten their Libsyn password.
Maybe they should be dropping LC at email to say, what's the password again, I've forgotten it. but you look at that and you think surely that's an obvious thing to do. so again, I don't really understand how Spotify works.
maybe this new person who they're hiring will clear it all up.
Maybe they will. Who knows now? podcasts, Sam, we've not really talked about the amount of content that we listened to and I think it will be nice to do that every week. So I was wondering what podcasts are you listening to? at the moment
I tend to listen to tech podcasts. I have the same thing with my book reading. I don't read. Fiction books. It has to be non-fiction I can't see the point, but a bit like spike, Milligan. I read the last chapter of the fiction book just in case I died before the end really don't have any value in it. so my podcasting listening is very much the same. I listen to Scott Galloway. I listened to Kara Swisher with sway. they're the main. Podcasts. I listened to obviously the pod news daily.
Yes, of course everybody does. Yeah, of course.
And it's quite interesting whether you consider audible to be a Podcast or it's not. because I listened to a lot of audio books and the current one that I'm listening to is the prisoners of geography. 10 maps that will tell you everything you need to know about global politics
by Tim Martin. Oh yes. Tim Marshall sky news correspondent. Yes. He's yes, I think I read a bit of that. and I enjoyed a bit of that. There's also an app, which I would hardly recommend called Blinkist, which takes. Books and it's always historically taken books and edited them down so that they're a short read and you get the gist of the book in there. But what they've started doing is they've started turning those into audio books.
So you can listen to an audio book that only takes 15 or 20 minutes. And what they've even started doing now is taking podcasts and made short versions of those podcasts, which is quite a clever. Plan on there as well. So it's a paid for service, but might be worthwhile. but in terms of Podcast I what Podcast specifically? Don't invade my question, Mr. Sethi, are you listening to
no. As I said, I don't, I only listened to as I said, Scott Galloway is one that I love listened to. I think his views on the industry and what's going on in generally. good. And then sway, which is Kara Swisher's. They're the two main ones I listened to. I used to listen to a few others, but they're dropped off my list now. And going back to Blinkist, not to avoid the subject before I ask you what yours are.
I used a similar service when I was doing my MBA many years ago, and it's the only way I got through it. So there was a company in New York that would take all the business books, and this is how old we are, or I am and put them onto to cassette tape. And then they would send you those cassette tapes back to the UK Yes. And on my train journey home. I would listen to the books.
And so my professor or my MBA, who was saying, read all these books and then I'd come back with these summaries the next couple of days, you'd be like, how the hell are you reading all these books so fast that I never told him. yes, I think it worked really well. Got a great result in my MBA for that. Thank
you very much. I'm amazed that they were able to ship the wax cylinders to you and that they didn't break on the steamer in between the U S and the UK. good. yeah I ha I have been listening to. the Lazarus heist, which is all about a North Korea hacking group. It's a weird listen it's Podcast from the BBC. it's a Podcast which is full of ad breaks for their own shows, which is really weird. So they've clearly understood the benefit of cross promos which is a nice thing.
and there's also something slightly weird about listening to stories of the propaganda that comes out of North Korea on a podcast which has been produced by a state fund, did broadcaster of a Western nation because you can't help, but think that there's probably a little bit of property Gamba on that side of it as well. Yeah. But it's a fascinating lesson. it's really interesting.
It starts off with the Sony entertainment hack after Sony was bringing out a new film about the killing of King Kim Jong IL or King Jong whichever of the Kim's it was and then goes into lots of other things that the North Koreans have also apparently been involved with. So a well-worth Alyson.
clearly my podcasting has to be listening to the winners of the Ambi. So I'm going to go back in this, dying for sex, this week.
And why not? what's been going on for you in Podland this week, Sam.
unlike you who's much busier. So we'll ask you in a second. I been kindly invited by Harry Morton onto the Podcast 24 as a panelist. So I'm looking
forward to that. Oh yes. This is the planets podcasting conference at Podcast day 20 four.com. it's on Monday, the 7th of June. And you can come to the conference itself in Sydney for eight hours at the beginning of the day, which I'm helping program. And then it continues in London where you are presumably, and then in North America, when neither of us are you can buy tickets now at Podcast, a 20 four.com. And if you use code P news day 21, That's P news day 21. then you can save some money.
I'm not quite sure how much you save, but I'm sure that you've saved some money. so a well-worth doing Monday, the 7th of June and also I'm taking part in the BBC Podcast festival, which is happening. a little bit sooner than that. you'll find links. If you do a search for BBC Podcast festival in pod news that's all free. And I'm speaking on the final session on may the 27th, which reminds me, my slides needs to be in for today. And I haven't even started doing them yet.
But, that's the story of my life. so there we go. that's it for this week, come back to Podland next time. Follow us in your podcast app or we're at Podland dot news on the web.
And if you have any comments or questions, please send us a voice comment to questions at Podland dot news or tweet us at
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